The Way I Loved You
by iPodHeadPhones
Summary: Draco and Ginny are separated, and Ginny is in a new relationship with Roger Davis, and Ginny is trying to forget Draco. Not as easy as it sounds, especially when Draco interferes. D/G Hogwarts-era OotP-compliant. Rated T for safety.


"Just stay."

"No."

"Please?"

"I can't. I have a reputation to uphold, you know." Ginny grinned at him. "If Hermione comes looking for me in the morning, and I'm not there, there'll be awkward questions." She started walking toward the door of Ravenclaw Tower.

_Three...Two...One..._

Roger gently grabbed her wrist and pulled her in for one last kiss.

_Right on time_, thought Ginny, with a mental eye-roll. _Stop that. You_ like _Roger. He's a_ good person, _your parents like him--your parents _know about _him. That's a plus, right?_ A flash of mercury eyes passed behind her closed lids, but Ginny pushed it down and pulled her attention back to the kiss just as it was ending. She smiled at Roger, and hoped that he didn't notice that there was nothing behind it. He didn't. Of course not.

"I'm leaving now. 'Bye, Roger," her voice was firm, as he showed every sign of continuing to protest.

He had the grace to look abashed. "'Bye, Ginny, my little Whiskey-eyed Girl." Roger smiled a little.

Ginny, who had begun to move toward the door, froze and turned very slowly back to him. The dark look on her face made him flinch a little, as did the ice in her voice. "Don't _ever_ call me that. Not _ever_."

The hurt and confusion showing so plainly on his face brought Ginny back to her senses. Her eyes, which had gone cold and hard, softened, and she said, "Sorry, Roger. It's just...I had a friend who...I can't talk about it...just don't, please?" She took one of his hands in both of hers and looked up at him, begging him to understand, begging him not to ask questions that she couldn't possibly answer.

He studied her face for a moment, and then nodded, and then freed his hand from hers. "Well then," he stood up very straight, with his hands at his side, and said mock-formally, "good night, Ginevra." There was a ghost of a smile playing around his lips, and Ginny was suddenly grateful for his ability to bounce almost immediately back into good humor, no matter the circumstance.

She nodded back, and then walked out of the questioning door at the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room. It called out to her, "do you know what time it is, dear?" Ginny smiled a little--a real one this time--and kept walking. It occurred to her that she should have turned and waved or something, Roger would have been waiting for it. But she was around a corner now, and it would be strange to go back; she started to walk more quickly, a flush warming her cheeks. It was always like that with Roger; nothing was ever natural. She always had to think about what she should do, rather than go with what felt right, because nothing ever did. Why was that? Roger was perfect--he always said the things she supposed most girls would want to hear ("You're beautiful" was one of his favorites. He said it so often that it had ceased to mean anything to Ginny). He was attentive, but not clingy, and he gave her time to be with her friends, and to be alone. What wasn't to like? He was _perfect_

But that was just it--he _was_ perfect. There was not teasing, no spontaneity, no...fire. Ginny snorted. When had she become so poetic? Fire indeed. She was comfortable with Roger. She didn't feel bad; she didn't _feel_ anything at all.

Roger saw only the Ginny that everyone saw--the only one she ever let anyone see anymore--a pretty, happy, bubbly Ginny. She had only ever let one person see her darker nature--the part of her that was still tainted and in pain from her first year, and Tom. _He_--she refused to say his name, even in her head--had embraced it and accepted her dark silences and sometimes-vacant eyes, and only _he_ had the ability to bring her back from the brink of madness when she woke up in the night, screaming.

Ginny once again steered herself away from that dangerous line of thought, and paid attention to her surroundings for the first time since leaving Ravenclaw Tower. She was on the seventh floor, a tapestry of trolls in tutus on her right. It was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite place it...The Room of Requirement! Of course, how could she have forgotten?

Musing on how quickly things changed, and how long it seemed to have been since the days of the DA, Ginny barely noticed a door that hadn't been there before open on her right. Draco Malfoy emerged from it, and the moonlight filtering through the high windows at the end of the corridor frosted his platinum hair and alabaster skin, making him look ghost-like, but beautiful. He was wary, looking to his left, and then his right before emerging completely from the doorway. Ginny tried to back slowly around the corner, but her movement drew his attention. As their eyes met, hers went very wide, and all of the blood drained out of her face. He had seemed about to walk away, but now froze. His bag thumped to the ground, unheeded, as he muttered a curse, and took four quick steps toward her. He captured both of her hands in one of his, and moved them above her head, pushing her against the wall with his other. His mouth descended on hers, and she was lost...

Draco POV:

Draco cursed McGonagall for giving them so much work--and over Christmas! It had taken him all night to finish the essay she'd assigned on the properties of Animagi and how they had been abused over the centuries, and he was exhausted. He glanced at his watch. It was one-thirty; if he were caught out this late, he would be punished harshly, especially with his allowance into the school so tenuous already. He would just have to be especially careful. It wasn't as though he didn't have practice being careful.

Draco stuffed the rest of his books violently into his bag and marched toward the door. Thank Merlin for the Room of Requirement--he never would have finished anything this year without it. His common room was too boisterous, and the library too memory-filled to be of any use. Images of red hair, secret meetings in lost corners of the library, and hands fumbling under robes until gentle pushes with small smiles--smiles that always seemed to promise more, promises she never kept--stopped them tumbled through his mind before he could shove them all back and add more mental mortar to the usually-solid brick wall behind which he kept all his memories of her.

Draco hoisted his over-full bag higher onto his shoulder and opened the silver-handled door. He glanced to his left and right, stepped out of the room, and did a double take; Ginny Weasley was trying to skulk around a corner at the end of the hall. Draco fully intended to walk away--he had always prided himself on his self-control--but when she realized that he had seen her, her already-large deep brown eyes had gone wide, and her face, stark white, making her cinnamon dusting of freckles stand out in sharp relief. Draco couldn't make himself walk away. He stared at her for half of a second longer, and then cursed and dropped his bag. Four steps took him to where she was. One of his hands captured both of hers, and he pushed her against the wall. He just looked at her for the space of a breath--so vulnerable, caught between him and the stone--and then couldn't hold himself back any longer. He dropped his mouth to hers, and let go of her arms to tangle one hand in her hair and wrap the other around her waist to pull her in close. And then he was lost...

Draco returned to himself when he felt dampness on his cheeks. Warning bells went off in his head. He pulled a few inches back from her and opened his eyes. Ginny still had hers closed tightly, but tears leaked out, sparkling like crystals in the moonlight. The sight of those tears hit him like a punch in the gut.

"Oh Gods, Whiskey. I'm so sorry. Did I hurt you? What's wrong...?" He trailed off as she shook her head, her eyes still tightly closed.

"Dammit, Malfoy, just...stop pretending you care. When I was with you, I felt something for the first time in my life, and when you left me, my heart just...turned off. I stopped feeling _anything_--there isn't anything bad in me, because there's nothing, Draco. _ Nothing_" She was sobbing now, barely coherent, and refusing to meet his eyes. "When I was with you, I didn't know myself--I acted insane. You were so frustrating, but I miss you--I miss seeing and hearing and feeling clearly. But mostly I just miss _you_." She finally looked up at him, and pounded her fist once on his chest. "I miss having someone who understands, even when we're fighting, that I'm worth something.

"Just now, I almost forgot how much I hate you for leaving me, because kissing you gives me such a rush--the only thing that comes close to it is diving on a fast broom, rushing headlong toward danger, but not caring because you know someone's there to catch you. _That's _the way I loved you, and you never understood."

She shoved him as hard as she could on the chest, and he--caught by surprise--stumbled backwards far enough that she could slip by him. Ginny ran off, and Draco just watched her go.


End file.
